American Bred REDONE Episode 4: Winning Hand
by American Companion
Summary: Walks down Memory Lane are never sought by the Doctor, but sometimes he just runs into them. Or sometimes they save him. And occasionally the past traveler meets the present friend and you get to save a small section of time and space that is neither here nor there for anyone in the party.
1. Chapter 1

The Doctor hesitated in front of Kathryn's bedroom door. He wasn't exactly sure about all this, but the TARDIS had made her opinion on the subject very clear. After what had happened during the American Revolution, and several other incidents afterwards, it was obvious what the TARDIS wanted the Doctor to do with Kathryn.

He'd tried to reason with the old girl, telling her he was too old for something like that, he hadn't known Kathryn for nearly long enough, and she should probably grow up first. However, the Type-40 was adamant.

Now to tell Kathryn about it.

He reached up to knock on her door when he was interrupted by the sound of panicked running. He heard shouts, then a loud crash. Fearing the worst—it _was_ Kathryn after all—the Doctor opened her door.

Kathryn was standing in the center of her rather large room. She had streaks of dirt and mud on her clothes and face, notes jotted on the inside of her left arm, and her short red hair had small bits of grass stuck in it. She was glaring steadily at an un-potted plant that she was holding at eye level.

"Kathryn? What happened?" The Doctor stepped forward, only to look down when something crunched under his foot. Shards of a clay flower pot were scattered in front of the bedroom door.

"Kathryn?" the Doctor repeated, his tone less worried and more curious. "What happened?"

"Floyd got lose."

"Floyd?"

She held the plant out towards him. It looked like a closed bud on a long thick stem. The plant was about a foot and a half tall and had green splotches all over its red skin. The Doctor blinked.

"Floyd is a plant," he said.

"Yeah. Who else would Floyd be?"

"I heard something running."

"Yeah. Floyd."

"How…" The Doctor shook his head. "You know what? Never mind. Just…put him back where you got him—"

"I grew him, thank you very much."

"You…grew him?"

"Yes. In my greenhouse. I have others in there too. Ruby, Bartholomew, Fredric, Anita…great company."

The Doctor stared at Kathryn for a long moment. "Right. I'm going to save my sanity and not ask."

"I was bored!" Kathryn defended herself. "I go a little off when I'm inactive, and you haven't flown us any place for the past week! Even for the two weeks before that you took us to really dull state parks."

"Being chased by a bear is not dull Kathryn."

"Compared to extra-terrestrials it is."

The Doctor studied Kathryn again. "You really want to go someplace."

"No duh Ping-Pong," Kathryn said, giving him a look. "I live on a time ship. Of course I want to go someplace."

The Doctor smiled. "Then get changed. Something you can focus in. You have some stuff to learn."

"Learn?"

"I'm going to teach you fly her."

Kathryn's eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped into a large "O." "Really?"

"Against my better judgment," the Doctor said, "the TARDIS has spoken, and I don't argue with my transport."

Kathryn beamed, shoved Floyd into the Doctor's hands and dashed into her bathroom for a shower.

The Doctor looked down at the plant. The closed bud tilted up at him and made a hissing sound.

Hastily dropping Floyd, the Doctor beat a retreat back to the console room.

* * *

"Don't chuck my plants about!"

"He was threatening me," the Doctor said without looking up from the TARDIS console. "And he called me a rather rude name."

"You speak plant."

"A few dialects. Depends on what planet they're from."

"I thought you spoke every language."

"Plants come under botany. I wasn't quite as attentive in that class."

Kathryn blinked. "I would ask you about Gallifreian schools, but I'm too scared to." She bounced over to where the Doctor was. "So, where do I start?"

"You already made some semblance of progress when you…I don't want to say flew…but it wasn't exactly crashing…"

"Splenix," she interjected.

"That's it, you splenixed it," the Doctor confirmed. He paused. "Isn't that a color?"

"A pinkish green. Seemed like it would work as an adjective."

The Doctor shrugged. "Considering pink is simply negative green, and you were neither crashing nor flying, I suppose it does. Anyway, painting aside, I'm going to try and do this with small steps."

"So that means…"

"You're only steering this time. And landing. The steering wheel and the landing."

"If it helps, I don't have my Driver's Permit yet."

The Doctor looked up at her. "Thank you," he said, sounding anything but grateful.

"Look on the bright side!" Kathryn said with a smile. "It means that you don't have to un-teach me anything."

"It's not exactly encouraging Kathryn," the Doctor informed her drolly. "Anyway, I've already put in a set of co-ordinates; all you have to do is steer. Now, take this wheel—" the Doctor pointed at a half-circle steering wheel—"and just stay between the lines on the screen here." He tapped the glass of the screen in question. Kathryn gripped the wheel and started talking.

"Take the helm and follow the Vortex Nav screen. When the light turns aquamarine, I throw the Temporal Stabilizer switch first, and then pull the Spatial one."

"Right," the Doctor confirmed.

Kathryn and the Doctor stared at each other for a moment before Kathryn spoke first—as usual. "What, I'm not even going to get asked how I know?"

"No."

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Yes. Why wouldn't I be?"

Kathryn looked narrowly at the Doctor. "I kind of burst your teaching bubble there."

"I know TARDIS gave you her manual. That's one of the reasons I'm teaching you."

Kathryn pointed at the Doctor. "That's right! I wanted to ask; why don't you do what the Type-40 Instruction Manual says?"

"The instruction book is wrong."

"No it isn't."

"Who's the wise elder in this case?" the Doctor scoffed.

"I'll agree elder," Kathryn said blandly. "Wiser is still under debate."

Without warning Kathryn grabbed the starter switch and pulled it down, sending the TARDIS whirling through the vortex.

* * *

The forest was completely calm. The area resembled the redwood forest of earth, but the air was humid. A few birds sang in the heavy air, and invisible insects could be heard chirping and clicking. A bush moved as a small animal that resembled a rabbit, just with six legs, a long tail, and dingy blue fur hopped out. It nibbled at the reddish grass for a moment before its ears shot up. It sat back, knowing that something dangerous was nearby and coming closer, but not knowing what it was.

_Vworp vworp vworp. Thoum. _

The rabbit creature beat a hasty retreat as a large blue box materialized around a tree with a grating sound. There were sounds of arguing and scuffling inside the box before the door opened with a creak and a red-haired girl stumbled out. She glared at the box as the door slammed.

"As if you always park like an expert!"

The TARDIS faded in and out with her signature sound as the Doctor moved it a few yards to the left, leaving the tree behind without a single mark on the bark. He stepped out of the TARDIS to join Kathryn, fixing the collar on his trench coat as he did so.

"For the record, I always park correctly."

Kathryn crossed her arms, shifting her weight. "What about the time you were trying for the back garden and landed in the middle of the tennis court?"

"It was a palace!"

"There was a tennis match in progress."

"And?"

"I got hit in the head by the serve."

Kathryn frowned. "Hang on." She turned around, smelling the air. She took a few steps, leaping slightly as she did so. She turned back around to the Doctor. "Am I finally on an alien planet?"

The Doctor frowned. "Haven't I taken you to one yet?"

"No. It's always been Earth history."

"I thought we went to Mars once."

"Doesn't count. It was an Earth colony." She grinned. "But I'm finally on a different planet!" She gave the Doctor a mock frown. "And that first day on Zroink doesn't count either."

The Doctor smiled at Kathryn antics. "So then, Kathryn Moore. Where do we go on your first 'real' planet?"

Kathryn paused, thinking. "I say…" Using grand gestures, she pointed to her left. "I say we go that way."

"Sounds like a plan."

* * *

Kathryn and the Doctor walked, enjoying the area. It didn't seem to be populated, which neither of them minded. Kathryn asked the Doctor questions about some tricky linguistics and then a few things about the level of math beyond Quantum physics. However, soon she seemed to run out of questions.

It took the Doctor a little while before he noticed that Kathryn was humming. He listened harder, grinning at the tune. He joined in with the words.

Kathryn flashed the Doctor a grin, turning the humming into words.

_Oooooooh _

_ Lydia oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia, _

_ Lydia, the Tattooed Lady. _

_ She has eyes that folks adore so, _

_ And a torso even more so. _

Kathryn and the Doctor danced over the tree roots, the song completely ridiculous but all the more fun because of it. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves, carefree because they could be and because no one was around to look disapproving.

_Lydia oh Lydia, that encyclopidia, _

_ Oh Lydia the Queen of Tattoo. _

_ On her back is the Battle of Waterloo. _

_ Beside it the wreck of the Hesperus, too. _

_ And proudly above waves the Red, White, and Blue, _

_ You can learn a lot from Lydia. _

_ La la la, la la la. La la la, la la la._

Before they could begin on the next verse of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady," there was a sharp snapping sound and something whistled by their noses. They pulled up short, staring at the dart that had appeared in the tree in front of them.

They looked down wind to where the dart had originated. A large group of human sized green tri-peds with guns stood a few hundred yards off, looking rather peeved. The one in front was taking another sight at them.

"We run?" Kathryn asked.

"Yes," the Doctor answered. "Run."

Kathryn and the Doctor took off down the way they had come.

* * *

*Constructive criticisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*


	2. Chapter 2

Kathryn and the Doctor pelted along, leaping almost effortlessly over bushes, animals, roots, rocks, and whatever else got in their way. Since Kathryn had larger lungs and one more heart than the Doctor did, and the Doctor never seemed tired no matter how much he ran, they talked as they escaped their pursuers.

"Do you know who they are?" Kathryn asked. The Doctor nodded.

"Twirks."

Kathryn wove her way around a tree as a dart plunked into the bark behind her. "A plant named Zroink, aliens called Twirks. Why not? Why are they trying to kill us?"

"I'm not sure they are."

"They aren't exactly asking us by for a cup of coffee."

"Twirks are hunters by nature, poachers and collectors by trade," the Doctor told her, leaping over a root. "Rather good at it too. See, they have these darts that will detect how much knock-out drug is required to put that particular prey under for a set amount of hours—"

"All very interesting I'm sure," Kathryn interrupted, rolling sideways as a shot nicked her ear. It went numb for a moment before the stored energy in her body purged the toxin. "But how does that help us make them stop?"

"It doesn't," the Doctor answered bluntly. "They won't let up until they've stuffed us."

"I take it you don't mean the 'invite them over for a large dinner' kind of stuffed."

"Right."

Kathryn sighed. "Fine then. You—"

Whatever Kathryn's next words were going to be were cut off as the sound of a motor came from somewhere in front of them. A shivering pillar of air appeared at the same time.

Everything happened at once. The darts abruptly stopped and the Twirks attempted a retreat, falling over themselves in the process. A silver canister, no bigger than a soft-drink can, flew out of the pillar of air, burying itself in the dirt near the Twirks. This can was immediately followed by a motorcycle and accompanied by the Doctor throwing himself at Kathryn with the words, "Get down!" being shouted at her.

The Doctor thudded into Kathryn and an explosion ripped through the area. Kathryn and the Doctor got up in time to see a leather clad rider taking out the few surviving Twirks with a few solid blows. Kathryn watched with wide eyes. So did the Doctor, though his stare carried more of a disbelieving, panicked look rather than one of amazement.

"She's like an angry ninja ballerina!" Kathryn breathed in awe. She paused, then resolutely announced, "I'm going to introduce myself."

"Kathryn!"

"Doctor, take a deep whiff! I'm getting the recipe for that explosive."

Before the Doctor could protest further, Kathryn had marched up to the person.

"Love the smell of nitro in the morning," she said pleasantly. "That's a great aim you've got."

The person in the leather tucked the titanium crossbow into a holster on the side of the bike, then pushed a button on the side of the helmet they were wearing, causing the visor to disappear. Kathryn could see tanned skin around brown eyes, with reddish brown strands of hair here and there. The figure looked female, and the voice, which had a very faint English accent, proved that to be true.

"You don't sound like you're from Prantis."

"Is that here?"

The woman laughed pleasantly. "Now I know you're a visitor! Yes, this is the forest planet of Prantis."

"Well you're right," Kathryn confirmed. "I'm not from here. Judging from the fact you just came out of air, I don't think you are either. What do you use in those things?" she asked, nodding at the several extra canisters strapped to the woman's motorcycle.

The woman shrugged. "Bit o' this, bit o' that. Mostly nitroglycerine. Call it Nitro-11."

Kathryn shrugged, as if unimpressed. "I like it. Simple, easy to remember. You ever feel like sharing the recipe?"

The woman's eyes smiled. "I might someday. It used to be Nitro-9, but it's gone through two separate upgrades since then. Fits in a thinner container and packs more punch now." The woman cocked her head. "You don't sound like anyone I've met. Where are you from, and how did you get here?"

"I'm from over that way," Kathryn said, gesturing to the tree trunk the Doctor was standing next to. "Originally Earth, currently everywhere." She stuck out a gloved hand. "My name's Kathryn Moore."

The woman pulled off her helmet, revealing short hair and a squarish face. "Good to meet you Kathryn. My name's Ace."

Both females turned to look at the Doctor as he groaned slightly, covering his face with his hand.

"Two of them," he muttered. "What am I going to do with two of them?"

Ace seemed puzzled, but Kathryn looked irritated. "Don't be rude Doctor! This girl just saved our necks."

Ace's face melted into an expression of hopeful disbelief. "Professor?"

The Doctor dropped his hand, a smile playing on his lips. Kathryn thought he looked a bit sad as well, a strange, reminiscing sort of sad. "Hello Dorothy. Been a while."

Ace continued to watch the Doctor. "Did you undergo that process you told me of, ah, regeneration?"

"Three times since we last met. You still look the same. And still using explosives, I thought I told you to stop that."

"Yeah, well, drug runners don't always respond to your methods, Professor."

"Drug runners? I thought they were Twirks."

"They are, but the market for drugs is bigger right now, so they turned to that instead. I've been tracking them down through time, over the course of about 70 linear years. "

"Okay, time out!"

Kathryn stepped in between Ace and the Doctor, her hands crossed in a 'T' shape. "Back up about twenty seconds." Pointing between the two of them, Kathryn tried to clarify. "I just met her, but you know her. She knows you, but it's been awhile. You called her Dorothy, so that must be her name. She called you Professor, making that a nickname which tells me you used to either live together or travel together. You did something called regeneration that makes you look different, so she didn't recognize you until I said your name. The poacher race isn't really a poacher race because they're running drugs. She blows things to bits and beats people up and you're okay with that, but when I want to send something up in a cloud of smoke, you flip out." Kathryn glanced between Ace and the Doctor. "Did I get everything?"

The Doctor scratched his chin and nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Okay. Good. I just wanted to be sure." Stepping backwards, Kathryn made a sweeping gesture. "Please, continue. I've learned more about this loon in the past thirty seconds then I have in two months."

Ace dipped her head and smiled. "Yeah, the Professor is like that."

"How'd you meet?"

"Fast food joint on an ice world."

Kathryn made a snirking sound. "That's even better than mine."

Ace tilted her head. "How did you meet?"

"I took a shot at him and he flew me to a hospital."

Ace smiled in response. "Well done."

The Doctor had a look on his face that spoke of serious déjà vu, though whether it was from seeing an old friend or because he had had companions meet each other before, Katie didn't know. She didn't really care though; she was getting a perverse pleasure from seeing him so out of his element. The Doctor wasn't much of a touchy-feely person.

"Tell me, is the TARDIS still shaped like a phone box?" Ace asked Kathryn. Kathryn nodded vehemently.

"Oh yah! He's teaching me to fly her now, just started today. Was she always blue?"

"Yes. Most of the time. It was pink once."

"PINK?"

The Doctor stepped forward, a kind of horror in his eyes that most people get when their baby pictures are shown to their friends. "I don't think Kathryn needs to hear that one."

"Quiet Doctor, I want to hear this." Turning her attention back to Ace, Katie said, "Please, continue. I didn't know she could be any other color."

"It wasn't optional. We had landed on a world where it was illegal to be sad, and the local police felt the blue color was too depressing, so they painted it pink."

"Her."

Ace looked quizzically at Katie. "Her?"

"TARDIS is a her, not an it."

Ace seemed puzzled by the distinction, but let it go. She turned back to the Doctor. "Any reason you've popped in?"

"Nah," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "I thought it would be a fairly un-populated region for Kathryn to try landing."

"You aren't exactly wrong on that point," Ace said. "At this point in time, almost no one lives on the planet, and most settlements are father west than we are."

"This point in time?" Kathryn cut in. "Do you travel in time?"

Ace smiled. "Yeah. Space too. Gets boring staying on one planet, so I rigged a time hopper and attached it to my motorbike. I can't planet hop very often, but often enough." Ace frowned slightly, changing the subject. "Do you two remember where you first ran into the Twirks? They probably kept their stash there, and it needs to be destroyed before I can label the file complete."

"We could walk you over," the Doctor said. "Might take a bit; we were setting a pretty good pace."

Ace laughed at the Doctor suggestion. "We can fit on the bike."

"The TRON bike?"

Ace thought about that for a moment. "I suppose it's an accurate enough description."

Kathryn shrugged. "Well it reminds me of one of the light bikes from the original TRON, right down to the dark blue color. Well, the ones in the movie were a weird glowy blue, but basically they're the same bike. Except for the funky yellow thing." Kathryn crouched down in front of the handlebars and looked curiously at the yellow colored thing between them. It was clunky and aerodynamic at the same time, with several buttons and a small screen. "Is this the time hopper?"

"Yep."

"Hmm. I like TARDIS better."

Ace got on in front, with Kathryn between her and the Doctor. "If you're flying the TARDIS, you must have already been enrolled in Prydon for a bit."

Kathryn felt the Doctor's hands on her shoulders tense, even past the half-floating sensation that the motorcycle had. "Prydon?" Kathryn asked, her voice cautious.

Ace took the note of caution for something else. "Oh, are you in one of the other houses?"

"I don't follow. Hang a left at the next tree."

Ace took the corner, glancing back at Kathryn as she did so. She also seemed to be checking on the Doctor. "The six academies on Gallifrey. Prydon, Arcal, Patrex, Dromeian, Cerulean, and the Scendles."

"Haven't heard of them."

Ace slowed the motorcycle to a stop and turned around, looking past Kathryn to the Doctor, searching for an explanation. Kathryn heard something in the Doctor's voice that she couldn't place, a note she'd never heard there before.

"Prydon Academy doesn't exist anymore, Ace. None of the academies do. It's gone. All of it."

"Gone? How—"

"Later Dorothy."

Ace nodded. "You're right; I need to finish my job. But we will speak more on this." She focused on Kathryn. "How much further?"

Kathryn pointed to a nearby tree. "That where we were when they first shot at us."

Ace pulled a gizmo off her belt that looked like a hand phaser from the Original Star Trek. She waved it steadily around her, watching the back of the device for readings. Pushing a few buttons, a light beam much like a wide laser emitted from the end, waving downwards. The forest it scanned flickered, flashed white, then vanished.

In its place stood a small shed, with metal walls and rippled metal roof. It was covered with leaves and moss and things to help it hide even better. The area around it had been cleared to serve as a kind of landing pad for the small ship that was there. The ship was dull gray, with two crooked wings and a long neck with a bulb at the end.

"Twirk transport," Ace explained shortly. She pulled one of the belts of Nitro-11 canisters off her bike and tossed it to Kathryn. "Attached three of these, evenly spaced, along the ship. They're magnetic, so they'll stick on their own. Once we're clear I'll set them off."

Kathryn silently did as told, her mind humming with the discussion the Doctor and Ace had just had. What exactly had that emotion in the Doctor's voice been? She'd heard something similar to it once, but couldn't place it. Besides, when the Doctor had spoken it had seemed so much _deeper_.

Kathryn returned a single canister of Nitro-11 to Ace, who had three still attached to her own set. The three travelers got on the motorcycle in the same order and sped off. Kathryn heard a small beep as Ace pressed a button on her time hopper and a large explosion rocked the forest.

Ace slowed to a stop and got off the bike. The Doctor and Kathryn followed suit. Kathryn could tell that she had no part in the conversation that was about to begin.

"What happened to Prydon Professor?"

The Doctor looked Ace in the eye, about to answer, when there was a small blaring sound. Ace hurriedly pulled a silver phone off her belt, speaking into it.

"Yes?" She listened intently for a bit, eyes widening slightly. "What's your time?" she asked shortly, in a hurry. She closed the phone and looked back up at the Doctor, a smile dancing on her face.

"Ready for a trip down Memory Lane Professor?" she asked. Kathryn saw the same smile start to appear in the Doctor's eyes.

"Depends."

"Silver men invading a town."

"I usually carry gold on me."

Ace grinned, glad the Doctor had caught on. "No worries. I carry specially made bullets for this kind of thing. Both of you on the bike," she said, leading by example. "And prepare to have your insides mixed up." She dropped the visor back down on her helmet, punching a few buttons on the time hopper. A pillar of air similar to the one from before appeared a little ways ahead of them. The scent of singed titanium filled the air. "Time hopping isn't nearly as smooth as a TARDIS."

* * *

*Constructive criticisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*


	3. Chapter 3

Ace had made a gross understatement.

The trip through the time window Ace had opened up was a lot longer than Kathryn had imagined it, but somehow much shorter too. It was like the moments leading up to and during a car crash; it takes very few seconds to actually occur, but the mind takes in so much information during that short span of time that when you remember it, it seems impossible that it took so little time.

When they broke through the air pillar, Katie could sense it collapsing behind them, like a wave of water flowing in behind them even as she saw the tunnel opening ahead of them. There was absolutely no sound, not even that of a heartbeat or a breath. The smell of singed titanium had grown stronger, and had been joined with the scent of apples. Through it all, Kathryn had the sensation that wind was rushing past them, but from behind the motorcycle as though they were being pushed rather than pulled through time.

They broke through the other side of the vortex tunnel they had been traveling through. Ace pulled to controlled skid. She looked over her shoulder at Katie and the Doctor, almost certainly smirking at them under her visor. "Packs a wallop, huh?"

Kathryn tried to draw in a breath. "Yeah, you could say that," she wheezed. "I feel like I just got punched in the stomach a couple of times." She looked over her shoulders at the Doctor. He seemed to be having similar breathing problems. "You going to live?"

The Doctor nodded, still concentrating on drawing in air. Kathryn turned forward to Ace again.

"Onward to the trouble area then."

Ace needed no further bidding. Soon they were racing through the trees, dodging around them and sometimes going over bushes. Kathryn started to notice signs of settlements; a marked tree here, a trail there. Just odds and ends.

Soon the three travelers broke out into a clearing. Ace stopped abruptly and without warning, nearly throwing Kathryn and the Doctor off the bike. Without regard for them she got off the motorcycle, tearing off her helmet as she did so.

"This can't be possible."

The Doctor, fully recovered, walked up behind her and set a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry Ace."

"It's…gone."

Kathryn had to agree. She had expected a town of some kind, houses, people, maybe a few farms. But there was absolutely nothing. Not even wreckage. It was all just gray dirt, dotted with mounds of dark earth, stretching out towards the horizon. The piles of earth were perfectly spaced, about two yards between each and every one of them, as though someone had measured the distance. Besides the piles, the gray lifeless dirt was pock-marked in a strangely organized way.

"Doctor, these aren't Cybermen," Ace said, voice shaking ever so slightly.

"How did your contact describe them?"

"All I heard was that silver men were destroying the settlement." Ace's voice was dull as her mind tried to process the nothing in front of her. She shook her head. "There should be something here. This was one of the smaller groups, but still. There should be…_something_ left."

Kathryn walked forward past the two old friends. She watched the ground carefully, searching, though for what she didn't know. She paused at one of the dirt piles, staring at it and looking at the others.

"I don't think the silver men were trying to destroy the area."

"What?"

Kathryn turned back towards the Doctor and Ace. "The gray and the mounds go both ways. I feel as though the settlement just…got in the way." She crouched down by the pile, studying it. The Doctor and Ace walked over and looked down as Kathryn examined the dirt.

"Ace, why would people settle here?"

"Prantis is known for the soil," Ace told Kathryn, pulling herself together temporarily. "Virtually everything grows here, and grows extremely well."

"Could someone be stealing soil?"

"Awful lot of trouble for dirt," the Doctor said. Kathryn gave him a look.

"You grew up in or near a city, didn't you?"

The Doctor shrugged. "More or less. Why?"

"I'm a farm girl. Dirt isn't just dirt, Doctor. It's life for anyone who lives off it." She looked back again at the soil. "Even so, this is a little extreme. Maybe there was a particular vein of some kind of mineral that the silver men needed." She picked up a handful of earth and sifted it, letting it run through her fingers. "That would explain the ever so neat mounds of soil. They might have extracted what they wanted and left the rest."

Kathryn sniffed the dirt, tasted it, spat the dirt back into her hand and mixed it some, looking at the mud. The Doctor gave her the oddest look.

"You always throw a fit when I try that."

Kathryn returned the expression. "When you eat dirt, you look for traces of poison or dead someone. I'm trying to see if I can figure out exactly what mineral they were after."

"And?"

Kathryn shrugged. "Not a clue. As far as I can tell, this is exceptionally rich soil, nothing important missing. Then again, my brother was the one who would eat mud pies, so I'm probably wrong."

Kathryn turned her attention to Ace. "How long does that bike of yours run? Fuel wise."

"It's solar powered."

"Good." Kathryn stood up, brushing her hands off and wiping them on her jeans. "Drive that way," she said, pointing to her right. "Fast as you can with three people. We need to get as far as possible before our transport decides to stop from lack of solar."

"How do you know it's that way?"

"By the way the dirt's fallen," Kathryn answered the Doctor. "Now hush up and sit down. We have a lot of ground to cover."

* * *

They drove for hours. Whatever had made the piles of soil had never wavered in their pattern. The forest was always the same distance away on either side, the piles always the exact same size and the same distance apart.

They were forced to stop when the sun set. Kathryn produced three Meals Ready to Eat, or MRE's, from her faded brown messenger style bag. She passed them around.

"Okay, so this sort of chicken pasta doesn't taste as good as fresh, but hey, better than biscuit."

"What would sweets have to do with anything?" the Doctor inquired. Ace and Kathryn both gave him a look, as if they couldn't believe he had actually asked.

"Biscuit, my dear Doctor, is what you would probably call a roll," Kathryn explained. "Over in America, we have cookies, the British biscuit, and biscuits, the British rolls. Do try to keep up with the lingo." Kathryn turned to Ace. "Has he always had thick moments like this?"

"Constantly. Be careful though, he's got a lot more going on in that mind of his then he lets on." Ace and the Doctor exchanged a look, full of shared memories. They both returned to their dinners.

The meal was eaten in silence. Kathryn had also somehow fit a luminescent rock into her bag and it was rather bright, so they were good on light.

When all had finished, Ace shifted, looking purposefully at the Doctor.

"So tell me," she said, her voice both threatening and worrisome. "What's happened to Prydon Academy?"

* * *

*Constructive criticisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*


	4. Chapter 4

Kathryn could feel the air change around her. She suddenly had the feeling of being an intruder on a most private conversation. However, she was dying to know the story. She'd purposefully never asked the Doctor about Gallifrey in the successful attempt to have him not ask about her own origins. Well, her Earthian ones. As such, she only knew that Gallifrey was gone, though how or why she didn't know, and that the Doctor was the last of his kind and blamed himself for being that way.

However, both Ace and the Doctor seemed to have forgotten that Kathryn was there. The Doctor focused on Ace, that emotion Kathryn still had no name for all over his face and in his posture.

"How much do you remember of Gallifrey Dorothy?"

Ace's eyes were slightly moist as she spoke. "Everything Doctor."

Now Kathryn knew this was beyond serious. Gone were the comfortable nicknames; proper names were in use. Each side had the other's full attention.

The Doctor tried to speak, couldn't, then swallowed. "It's gone, Ace," the Doctor said, his voice cracking slightly.

"The Academies, or everything?" Ace seemed afraid of the answer.

"Everything. Gallifrey is gone."

"You said that before. Does that mean it's destroyed or something else?"

Kathryn didn't know there could be a "something else" when the word gone was applied to a planet or people. Then again, this was the Doctor. She should be used to the new by now.

The Doctor looked at Ace for a long moment, searching for the right words. Ace let him think.

"There was a war. A temporal war, a time war, the Last Great Time War."

Ace nodded. "I'd heard rumors."

"All of which are true." The Doctor stared at the shifting surface of the glowing rock, still speaking.

"It was the Daleks. In one great move of planning, they all came together; not just across space but time as well. All across Gallifrey's history in an effort to destroy everything. We fought back the same way. Species from across the galaxies were drawn in. A multitude of planets were caught in the crossfire, many of which knew nothing of what was happening."

Kathryn didn't know if it was some effect produced by the Doctor's natural telepathy, or a side effect of her energy absorption and she was pulling his memories into her own head, or just his method of speaking, but Kathryn fancied she could see what the Doctor was remembering, at least parts of it.

A red planet burning in the center of hundreds of others. Creatures fighting glinting robots of strange shapes. People blinking in and out of existence. Scars in the sky and the ground, through which all of everything could be seen. The Doctor's words washed over Kathryn as he continued talking.

"It never stopped, would never stop. I could see it, knew that it would grow until the whole of the vortex was consumed by the flames." The Doctor swallowed again, taking a breath and forcing himself to look back up at Ace.

"I had to contain it, Dorothy. I didn't have an option."

"Please tell me you didn't Doctor," Ace said, a desperate note to her voice. "You didn't."

"I took the TARDIS outside of it all." The Doctor's voice had a distant quality to it again. "I heard the quiet of space for the first time in forever. So I used power from the War itself to create a time lock around everything. Whole planets, entire species and histories were cut off from time itself." The Doctor took a breath. "Including Gallifrey."

His eyes refocused on Ace. "Gallifrey is gone Ace. Gone as though it had never been."

This whole time, Kathryn's entire being had been focused on the Doctor, reading him, studying him, listening to the story. Now she understood why he always looked so pained behind his smile.

But the shuddering breath from Ace's side of the fire was so packed with emotion that Kathryn looked to her.

Tough ol' Ace, the lady with the Nitro-11, motorcycle, and attitude, had her head tilted back and was blinking rapidly as she kept back tears. She cleared her throat, trying to cover for herself before she could start truly crying.

When she faced the Doctor again, her cheeks were slightly damp but her eyes were clear.

"I understand Professor," she said firmly. "I can't say I'm grateful, or that I agree, but I do trust you, and I understand why you did what you did."

There was total silence for a few beats, then the Doctor turned to Kathryn as though the last conversation had never occurred.

"Do you have a way to put out that rock? We need to sleep while we can; as soon as the sun's up we're moving."

Kathryn reclaimed the rock and dropped it into a drawstring bag made of silver cloth. She closed it and put it into her messenger pouch. She saw Ace and the Doctor lay down to sleep, but she certainly wasn't ready for that yet. Still, she didn't want to look inconspicuous, so she did the same, using her messenger pouch as a pillow.

So, that's what the emotion the Doctor had had on his face earlier had been. Guilt. Extreme, justified, overpowering guilt. She knew what that was like, but compared to the Doctor she might as well not have any.

Entire solar systems, including your own planet? How did he manage to get up every morning? No wonder he ran so hard; it was a heavy past to run from.

And a heavy responsibility. Kathryn didn't know who these Daleks were, but Gallifrey and the Time Lord's had to have been pretty big for an entire race to rally every member of its species that ever existed just to attack a single planet. Once you added time travel to the mix…

Kathryn realized with a start just how messy and confusing and deadly it could become. Whole histories, species, planets could be changed just to supply soldiers for one or both sides. And even though she didn't know a great deal about it, crossing time lines was very bad. Once that started, it would become disastrous.

Kathryn glanced over at the Doctor's still form. He wasn't sleeping, she knew that. You couldn't sleep after recounting something like that. She was beginning to appreciate the immense power he held, power he had to hold in strict check. He was the last of his kind; there was no one around to make sure that he stayed in line as he wielded a time machine as his weapon of choice. He could do anything, go anywhere, demand whatever he wanted. Instead he tip-toed through time, helping where he could and trying not to leave footprints.

Was that why he needed people? Needed another person in TARDIS with him? Without them, without someone to teach and force to look over his shoulder, would he snap and take time into his own hands? Time had rules; someone had to have written them. It would make sense for them to have been written by a Time Lord.

The Doctor could throw out the whole rule book and do whatever he wanted, and no one would be able to stop him. It was as simple as that. Yet he chose not to.

Kathryn's respect for the Doctor increased steadily the more she thought of it.

* * *

The Doctor watched Kathryn's still figure, lying on its back and staring at the stars. She knew it all now; what was she thinking of as she watched space?

Her home perhaps? He'd started teaching her a little about star charts and memorizing patterns. Maybe she was searching for Earth. She had to think of it often, as often as he thought of Gallifrey. Maybe she was picturing planets in a Time War and failing miserably. You couldn't picture it correctly even after being in one. The mind simply couldn't handle it. Was she beginning to understand what learning the secrets of time travel really meant, what it carried? Could she handle the power he was only just starting to give her?

The Doctor knew the answer to that. He'd had it for centuries and still had trouble containing it.

Was she realizing exactly what the Doctor was? Was she considering leaving?

The Doctor was surprised by the sudden knot in his stomach at the idea. He forced the feeling to leave. She had nowhere to go, not really. There was no one waiting for her anywhere.

Then again, no one had been waiting for Ace, and she had left. Oh, but she'd had her reasons, good solid reasons that the Doctor was proud of, as a parent might be for an only child. Because, really, she was like a child to him, his child.

The Doctor looked at Ace's shape and smiled faintly. She had to be…what? Thirty something now? And yet she still had that jacket, the leather one absolutely covered in patches and pins. He sometimes wondered if Ace would be Ace without the jacket. Likely not.

How had he gotten to this topic? That's right; Kathryn leaving.

Again, the knot in his stomach! People had left before, it was expected by now. He dreaded the day of course, but knew it would come at some point. So why exactly did the possibility of Kathryn leaving after hearing Gallifrey's story fill him with an extra level of terror? Why should he care if Kathryn left? He'd only asked her to join him out of pity, and out of caution. She needed someone to make sure she didn't lose it.

And yet…she was special. He could feel it, knew it when they met. Something was attaching him to Kathryn, something strong and strange and, if he was honest with himself—though he nearly never was—something frightening.

He didn't want to know what it was. He had an instinct that when he found out, the bond would be severed, and the Doctor didn't know if he could handle losing Kathryn.

* * *

The Doctor was, of course, the first one up. Being a Time Lord, he needed less than an hour of sleep a night. A benefit when whatever sleep you got was filled with nightmares. Came with age, which oddly enough was one of Ace's questions when she woke up.

"How old are you now Professor?"

"Nine hundred and three," the Doctor promptly answered. Ace's eyebrows went up.

"Then it's been…around two-hundred years since you last saw me." She looked over at Kathryn's sleeping form. "How many of us have you run through?"

"Now don't put it that way…"

Ace raised an eyebrow. "Why not? None of us are blind Professor; we know that there were people before us and that there will be people after us."

"And I remember each and every one of you."

Ace smiled. "I know." She looked back at Kathryn. "Still, I never quite pictured you with an American."

"It was a bit of an accident."

"Yeah, she shot you." Ace's smile turned teasing. "That has to be one of the funniest things I've ever heard." She sobered. "She's a good kid. Smart. How long have you known her?"

"A couple of months at best."

Ace's eyebrows went up. "And you're teaching her how to fly the TARDIS already? Must trust her a lot."

The Doctor shrugged, neither wanting nor knowing how to elaborate. "She's still teachable."

"I was only sixteen when we met."

"She'd turned fifteen ten days before she crashed into me."

Ace's face registered shock. "Wow. That's…young. That's like kidnapping." She looked at Kathryn again. "She's a good kid," Ace repeated. "Solid, pretty steady in a crazy, off-beat, insane way." Ace smiled again. "Kind of like you, now that I think about it."

There was a pause. "Professor, why is she still wearing gloves? And long sleeves? It's pretty warm around here."

"She doesn't have much of a choice," the Doctor quietly explained. "Kathryn…Kathryn's a Jahra, but not like one I've met before. She's programed to see and absorb multiple energy forms, directly from people as well as her general surroundings. She can't touch anyone without killing them."

Ace's frowned in confusion. "Jahra? That's a Rahki clone isn't it? The people-swappers and mind-recorders."

"Yeah."

"I take it she's not your usual program."

"Far from it. Energy absorbers exist, and every race does it on a very, very small scale, but Kathryn…Kathryn's dangerous."

Ace's forehead wrinkled in worry. "Doctor, what are you going to do if you meet up with the—"

"I don't know Ace. I really don't know."

Kathryn moved, stretching and sitting up, ending the conversation. The Doctor gave a firm nod.

"Good. At least I don't have to wake you."

"Oh hush Doctor. Barely sunrise. I have enough time to stand and pull the rocks out of my back before we leave."

As Kathryn picked up her messenger bag, something on the outside caught the Doctor's eye. He grabbed the bag from her, looking closer.

"This is mine!" he exclaimed upon seeing faded circular Gallifreian writing on the surface. Kathryn shrugged carelessly.

"So is most of the stuff in it. I had to clear out a spare room for my greenhouse, and I found the most useful junk you've ever seen in there."

"You didn't even ask!" he protested. "It was my school bag!"

"And you forgot it existed!" Kathryn argued. "You have a sonic; I have a bag that's bigger on the inside. Deal and hand it back over."

The Doctor frowned slightly at Kathryn before doing as she demanded. The motorcycle roared to life as the sun came up enough to work it.

"If you two are finished," Ace said impatiently, already putting on her helmet. "We have a lot of ground to cover. Let's move."

* * *

*Constructive criticisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*


	5. Chapter 5

The morning stretched endlessly, or so it felt to Kathryn from her place on the back of the bike. The trench dots never seemed to stop, always the same repeating pattern. What were they extracting? When the three friends stopped for lunch, Ace pulled out a soil analysis kit and checked the rich earth and compared it to the gray nothing that stretched out to either side.

Every possible nutrient had been extracted from the gray dirt, leaving behind only the mineral salts, the calcium and the rock. Meanwhile, the piles of earth were stuffed with what seemed to be all of the goodness that had been stolen from the gray.

"So where it stops against the forest is their range," the Doctor said, staring off to one side at the sudden border of thick trees. "Ace, what exactly makes the soil that useful?"

Ace thought for a moment. Then a slow, horrified realization crept over her face.

"Ronodim."

"What?"

Kathryn looked sharply up at the Doctor. She knew that tone, and it usually meant trouble of the very worst sort.

"It's the Ronodim, Professor," Ace restated. "This planet is full of it. There was a particularly rich vein that went all along here, making it perfect to start colonies."

"If someone's collecting it on this scale—"

"We're all going to be toast."

Kathryn raised a hand. The movement caused Ace and the Doctor to look at her. She lowered the hand. "What's Ronodim and why are we burnt marshmallows?"

"What century were you from?" Ace asked.

"Early twenty-first," Kathryn promptly answered. Ace nodded.

"That's why you don't know; we humans don't find it until 3122. It's an extremely versatile mineral. Have you taken Chemistry?"

"I took the one the local Junior College offered, yeah," Kathryn confirmed. Ace smiled.

"Then when I tell you that Ronodim is considered the universal element, you'll understand. Depending on what you combine it with or how you refine it, you can use it for everything from soap to food to explosives."

Kathryn thought about that for a moment. "So it's like glycerin, just as a single element instead of a compound."

"Close enough. A lot of the colonists would even use it to strengthen their buildings."

"How powerful an explosive does it create?" Kathryn asked.

"If it's super-refined," the Doctor answered soberly, "a tablespoon of it can make the Atom-bomb look like a firework."

It was Kathryn's turn to blanch. She looked sharply at Ace. "Do you have any more of those soil testers?"

"Yeah."

"Let me see one."

Ace handed Kathryn the box and she scooped up some earth, rapidly checking again. She stared hard at the colors in the vials. She paused, leapt back up and started walking along the odd divots and pits scattered about.

"What are you seeing Kathryn?" the Doctor asked.

"A living space." She took two steps to the North. "Fireplace." She turned sharply and walked sideways along a long shallow gash. She froze suddenly and set her hands on an imaginary window sill. "And a place to watch the sun come up."

Kathryn turned back to face Ace and the Doctor, seeing the realization dawning over their faces. "Who or whatever these people are, they're reducing everything in their range to its raw elements." She held up the soil analyzer Ace had given her. "Way too many elements that shouldn't be in the dirt. Carbon, potassium, phosphates, various salts, a few of the rarer earth metals…all we're missing are the gaseous compounds and we could make as much flesh and bone as we wanted."

Silence reigned for a minute. Then Ace spoke, her voice very cold.

"Professor, do you have any idea of who could be doing this?"

"Not a one. But we're going to find out." He looked sharply at Kathryn. "I want you with your eyes closed and watching for any strange flickers. Keep a sharp look on the area in front of us as we go. I don't want to blunder into whatever they're using to do this."

* * *

Kathryn did as ordered as they sped along on the motorcycle. She tried to use what little knowledge of Chemistry she possessed to both understand and fight what had happened.

She knew that everything was made of compounds, this that and the other. Compounds were just different bond formations between elements. Heat sometimes broke down those bonds; on occasion the polarity of water could rip apart weaker ones, like sodium chloride and other salts.

Steam maybe? Were the people vaporized, like sci-fi shows always had? Kathryn wasn't entirely certain which would be better.

More importantly, if these mysterious enemies could rip things apart from the literal ground up, how could she fight them? Maybe they had weak armor, or they only had the disintegrators on their fronts and sides. After all, if you destroyed everything in front of you, why should you worry about your back?

Something flickered up ahead. It hurt to look at, being a mix of extremely bright red and glowing, nearly neon green.

"Ace!" Kathryn yelled over the sound of the motorcycle. "Head to the edge of the forest! There's something up ahead!"

Ace did as ordered, veering off to the right. Kathryn opened her eyes momentarily and saw the forest in the distance, a great wall of untouched trees. The painful mix of light and heat had to be the excavators.

She closed her eyes again, trying to see better, but it hurt. It was like looking directly at a search light. Still, Kathryn couldn't stop now. This was a part she could help with, and she wasn't going to quit.

Ace ducked just inside the tree line, only a few feet away from the gray nothing.

"Ace, how well can you hold us steady?" Kathryn shouted.

"What do you need me to do?"

"I'm going to use the Doctor to help me balance while I stand on the back of your bike," Kathryn returned. "Try and go past the barrier!"

Ace gave a brief nod. By now they could see the silver men and what they were using to destroy the land.

The robot in view had a basic structure of two arms and legs. Each arm had an enormous, bat-like hand with multiple long fingers. Spreading out from the fingers was a web-like light structure, slicing across the trees and the ground, with a definite edge. Flames danced along the top of the laser net as the hydrogen and oxygen the trees contained were separated and turned to gases. Everything else was left behind as a mess on the ground, piles of elements in their pure state covering the ground.

A horde of smaller silver robots, though still a little taller than the average human, swarmed behind the larger robot. They seemed to be collecting and sorting the elements, sucking them in through tubes in their arms. They left behind the gray nothing. Periodically their backs would open up and a pile of dark brown soil would drop out.

Kathryn felt a sense of horror spread through her. She pulled a small pair of binoculars out of her messenger bag. Holding onto the Doctor's shoulders for balance, she put her toes on the back of the step used for mounting the bike and stood, trying to get a better view. She lifted the binoculars, scanning and looking down at the silver men.

The Doctor felt Kathryn's fingers dig painfully into his shoulders and felt her body tense. A second later Ace was trying futility to keep the motorcycle upright as Kathryn either fell or jumped off the back. Ace was competent, but she still ended up going into a slightly controlled crash.

The Doctor extracted himself. After quickly checking on Ace, he looked over to where Kathryn was sitting on the ground. The high pitched whine of machinery continued on in the background as he walked up to her.

"Kathryn?" he asked, faintly annoyed. "What happened?"

She didn't seem to have heard him, then looked up. Her eyes were a touch too wide and her already pale skin nearly devoid of color. She seemed to be trying to regain her breath.

"I don't know. I just…I felt as though I had to get away. I either had to get away, or—"

"Or what, Kathryn?" Ace prompted.

"Fight or flight." Kathryn closed her eyes. "It felt like fight or flight."

The Doctor crouched down in front of her, his expression worried. "Kathryn, did you see any markings on the robots?"

"Yeah, on the big one. It looked like a vine pattern was engraved into its shells, but it was an oddly clunky vine. No, more like…like a river. A flow or spread of something liquid. It spread out all along its back, coming out of a circle with jagged stripes in it. Looked like a tunnel."

Ace and the Doctor met gazes. Ace shook her head. "Looks like you get to find out what happens when you meet up with them Doctor."

Kathryn looked worried. She spoke up. "Meet up with who? Is it the Rahki?"

"No. For you, almost worse." The Doctor focused on Kathryn's face, meeting her eyes. "It's the Krize Kathryn."

* * *

*Constructive criticisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*


	6. Chapter 6

Since it was near sunset, the three decided to make camp. The Doctor had Kathryn check on the robots, and she noted that they were shutting down for the night.

"Maybe they're solar too," Ace mused. The Doctor shrugged in response.

"Very likely. Prantis has two suns. It would make sense to send solar powered diggers."

Kathryn was sitting quietly next to her luminescent rock. The glow, as well as the worry, made her appear older than she was.

"Doctor, who are the Krize?"

The Doctor sat cross-legged opposite Kathryn, explaining quietly. "The Krize are the polar opposites of the Rahki. Whereas the Rahki see and have no problem adjusting time or playing with it, the Krize are the epitome of non-interference. They devoted themselves so fully to the study and pursuit of knowledge and technology that they surpassed nearly everyone else. Soon they realized that they had the ability to de-rail every other species' natural growth. Instead of making rules that could be broken, they just decided to shut off all contact with anyone not at their level. They hardly ever leave their planet. People know of them, but actual contact is limited. Even when the Time Council still met on Gallifrey, they only ever came to the mandatory Centennial Gatherings.

"The Rahki have always gotten under their skin. They consider the clone process to be a vile one, damaging to the temporal flow. At all risks and pain, the Krize won't interfere with history, right down to the finest points."

Kathryn thought for a moment. "And so, as the mortal enemy of the Rahki, since I'm a Jahra I would have been programmed with an instinctual revulsion of the Krize."

"Looks like."

"And if they see me, scan me, and recognize me for what I am?" Kathryn questioned. The Doctor sighed.

"I don't know. They might try and capture you for formal deletion, or they might shoot on sight."

Kathryn shrugged. "What everyone else does." She looked into the Doctor for a long moment as thoughts began fitting themselves together in her mind. "They're the ones who sent the Grixzen after me back on Earth, aren't they?"

"Most likely."

"Which means I'm some kind of absurdly important project."

"Most certainly."

Kathryn looked at him steadily.

"You knew about this the whole time didn't you?"

"I did."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I was waiting."

"For the right moment?"

The Doctor smiled self-consciously and had the decency to flush slightly. "No. I was waiting for you to figure it out on your own."

Kathryn gave him a look of disgust. "Really? You thought I'd just remember it or something?"

"I was hoping. You do have that locked section of your mind."

"Why not just bring it up and see what I do?"

"Because I still don't know what you are and I want to figure it out before you do."

Kathryn blinked and considered that. "It…makes sense. In a strange, cruel, un-trusting, paranoid way."

"Good. Glad we're clear on that."

Sensing the sensitive side of the topic was closed, Ace sat down. Kathryn and the Doctor moved slightly and they all huddled around the glowing rock. Ace spoke first.

"What are the non-interfering Krize doing destroying forests and disintegrating towns?"

The Doctor had an immediate answer. "I've been thinking about that. It's possible these settlements weren't supposed to be here to start with, so destroying the area wouldn't do anything."

Ace shook her head. "Not possible. These colonies spread and grow. They're major suppliers of foodstuffs and Ronodim in later centuries."

"So scratch that," Kathryn said. "Maybe they just need the raw material that badly. You did say that Ronodim could be used for and in everything."

"Destroy a planet for a mineral?" the Doctor said, his tone shooting the idea down. "No. The Krize wouldn't do something like that."

Kathryn didn't accept defeat. "I don't know Doctor; war and blood feuds have a way of clouding judgment."

He sighed, a tired leaden sigh. "Unfortunately."

The three friends sat in silence for a few moments. Kathryn could only handle the quiet for so long before she asked a question. "Would the Krize send controlled or automatic machines?"

"Probably automatic," the Doctor said after a moment of thought. "Then if something went wrong, they wouldn't be left here with corruptible natives."

"Then couldn't we just blow up the majority of them tonight?"

Ace smiled. "I was thinking the same thing. I've still got a few canisters of Nitro-11."

"And I carry C-4 in case of emergencies."

"What?"

Kathryn smiled mischievously at the Doctor. "You never know. I've got a couple of homemade grenades too, and a few electromagnetic pulse charges."

"Kathryn, I think we need to discuss just what you're using my stuff for."

Kathryn didn't stop smiling. "No, we don't really. I won't stop." She turned back to Ace. "I suggest we send Ping-Pong on recon while the two of us do prep work."

"Sounds good." Ace produced a flashlight from a bag on her motorcycle and handed it to the Doctor. "Off you go. Let us know what you find."

"Why do I have to go?"

Kathryn gave him a look. "Ace is explosives expert and has to set up here, and if I either want to kill or run from anything Krize, it wouldn't be very good for me to walk up to them alone."

The Doctor grudgingly admitted the sense of the plan and started walking. Kathryn watched him go for a moment before starting to pull out her explosives and power charges.

Ace retrieved her remaining four canisters of Nitro-11 from her bike and sat down next to Kathryn. "You might as well ask now. It's probably going to be your only chance."

Kathryn didn't bother asking how Ace knew. "Will you answer them?"

"Yes."

"Why would you leave the Doctor?"

"It made sense at the time."

Kathryn thought for a moment. "How about you just start back at Gallifrey."

Ace's eyes got a bit misty. "How much do you know about Gallifrey?" she asked Kathryn softly.

"Not a lot. It's the Doctor's home planet. As of last night, I know that he locked it away, though exactly what a time lock is I have no idea."

"A time lock is a seal of sorts," Ace explained. "The two groups on either side of the time lock continue on in their cycles, almost completely unaware of each other. For those outside, nothing changes. For those inside, they tend to…get trapped in a loop. Sometimes it's a single hour, sometimes a day. Something on the scale of a Time War…" Ace breathed out. "I would expect that they're trapped constantly living the War, always fighting and dying."

"But you've been there," Kathryn pressed. Ace nodded, her expression turning wistful.

"Yes." She looked at Kathryn, studying her. "Maybe I should start from the beginning.

"I met the Doctor when I was a teen, a little older than you. We had a rough start, a lot of cloak and dagger stuff between us, manipulation, secrets, perceived back-stabbing. We were close though, very close. It got to the point where they Doctor suggested that I try and apply for admission into one of the six Time Lord Academes, specifically Prydon."

"Why Prydon?" Kathryn interrupted.

Ace smiled. "Apparently, the Prydonian Chapter was the renegade house. It was also where the Doctor went to school."

"Got it."

Ace continued the story. "In short, after a rather painful initiation which required visiting a disturbing section of my past, I was accepted into Prydon. Sort of."

"Let me guess," Kathryn said. "You were still human."

"Precisely. I was allowed to choose a single class as a trial period. I took 'Temporal Guardianship.' However, the Time Lords were extremely rude and, despite my high marks, I wasn't allowed to take anything more."

"So the Doctor came back to pick you up?"

"He was summoned back," Ace said dryly. "I was in my mid-twenties at the time, a great deal wiser, and a good deal less protective and clingy. I sort of made the executive decision that I needed to try and create a life for myself on Earth."

"But this isn't Earth," Kathryn said pointedly. Ace laughed shortly.

"Once you've spent a few years traveling the stars, it's hard to stay put. I decided to put my one class and my general experience to good use and built a time hopper. The plan was to patrol only a certain section of time on Earth, which I still do. But on the first test, my time portal formed wrong. I ended up here on Prantis, badly damaged. The locals helped me out, and I re-configured the time hopper. I decided that I would go between Earth and Prantis."

"That sounds like a rather exhausting life."

"Isn't yours?"

Kathryn smiled. "Yeah. Still marvelous fun though." She sobered slightly, then asked, "Ace, what's Gallifrey like?"

Ace fell silent. Kathryn wondered if she'd crossed the line, then Ace spoke.

"It's a very beautiful place. All red and silver, with mountains and plains and glass covered cities. The class was hard—extremely so—but I enjoyed the school. Gallifrey is very…very old, and you can feel it. It's a natural old, the way you would expect a library to be. Regal in the same sense, but the Gallifreyans are on the stuffy side. They knew their influence and didn't bother hiding it." Ace looked at Kathryn. "My turn for a few questions."

"Shoot."

"Why are you traveling with the Professor?"

"It's the only option I have," Kathryn answered immediately. "The family I thought I had…as far as they're concerned, I never left. You know, the automatic emergency transfer the Rahki have, except they didn't get me. I'm dangerous enough with the Doctor as a chaperone without understanding what I've really been programed to do."

"So the Professor forced you to travel with him?"

"No. I was planning to just wander planet Earth and he offered me a permanent lift."

"Why'd you accept?"

"A tall handsome man offered me a chance to learn every language in existence and the chance to pilot a time ship. I accepted."

"No other reason?"

Kathryn was quiet. "Sort of. It's a gut feeling. I think…I think he needs me somehow. Not just someone, but me specifically, like I'm supposed to be traveling with him right now. I have this horrible premonition that it will end eventually, but right now I think I'm supposed to be the one in TARDIS. I don't know."

Ace nodded. "Good enough. Just make sure you enjoy it Kathryn. Don't waste a single second of the travel time. It's a privilege, not a birthright."

"It's also a curse in some ways."

Ace shrugged. "The good outweighs the bad."

She straightened up. "Now we'd better get this stuff together before the Professor gets back. Otherwise he'll know we were talking about him, and he'll get nosy and indignant."

Kathryn giggled in agreement.

* * *

*Constructive criticisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*


	7. Chapter 7

The Doctor returned to find Kathryn on her back underneath Ace's motorcycle and Ace nowhere to be seen. He was fairly certain Kathryn was singing something, but wasn't certain until he got closer. He frowned. He knew the tune to be that of "_Just Around the River Bend"_ from Walt Disney's animated feature film _Pocahontas_, or something very close to it. However, the words were…extremely different.

_I lost my hat on Thunder Mountain_

_ My glasses on the Monorail._

_ I left my shoes o—n the Matterhorn._

_ And my shirt disappeared down the Wishing We—ll._

_ I—t's a bad da—ay at Disney._

_ Been a bad day at Dis—ney._

"Where's Ace?" the Doctor cut in. Kathryn stopped and twisted so she could look up at the Doctor.

"She's off finding water."

Kathryn turned back to whatever it was she was doing, picking up the tune where she left off.

_Mickey kicked me in the shin_

_ And Donald ha—ad choice words for me._

_ Indie hit me in the chin_

_ And a droid gave me a swirly._

Kathryn only half sang the last word as she pulled a fistful of wires and started messing with them. "What are you doing?" the Doctor asked in alarm, crouching down and trying to see. Kathryn didn't answer right away, singing a few more notes with her tongue half-way out of her mouth as she tied fuses together.

_Been a bad day at Disney._

_ Bad day a—t Dis—ney._

"Kathryn!" the Doctor said sharply. She looked at him through the wires.

"Stop breaking my concentration! I only half know what I'm doing as it is."

"What…are…you…doing?" the Doctor asked slowly. Kathryn blinked.

"I'm trying to re-wire this thing to run off of heat. When we head down to blow up some 'bots, Ace wants to make a swift get-away."

"How are you supposed to re-wire solar to run off of heat?"

"Beats me. Still, I took a shop class, and if I zone out, the same thing that happens with numbers seems to kick in and I go on autopilot." Kathryn tried to go back to work, but the Doctor had another question.

"What happens with numbers?"

"Whenever I encountered a new math concept at school that didn't make sense, I'd just stare at it for a while and the numbers would shift on the page and I'd get it. I'd notice patterns and things, some that I'm not even sure really existed. The same thing happened when I was breaking out of the hospital, the one on Zroink. I got to the base code for the computer and my sub-conscious rewrote it." She laid back down, a note of irritation in her voice. "Now just up and let me finish."

The song started up again where it had left off, continuing the tune and the list of woes.

_Some kid menaced me with a sword_

_ While his brother stole my _

_ FastPass to Space Mountain._

_ Blue Bayou got my order wrong_

_ And an abuelita hit me with her cane._

"Did all of that really happen?"

The Doctor looked up as Ace appeared from somewhere in the forest. Kathryn finished twisting a few more wires together as she answered the woman.

"To some poor guy? Maybe. To me? No."

"Then why write the song?" the Doctor asked. Kathryn smiled. There was a note of sadness in her voice. She started, paused, then tried again, speaking slowly.

"Kavrin's brother Geoffrey came up with the first two lines, and we just sort of kept it going. We were at Disneyland, final night of a three-day stay. We'd been having such fun, all four of us: her father, her mother, her brother, and I. So the song isn't really true; it was just a fun little ditty to make up and sing."

Kathryn put the panel back on the belly of the motorcycle and crawled out from under it. She looked over the Doctor's shoulder to Ace, who had returned.

"It should work now," Kathryn said, her voice back to its usual casual seriousness. "Either that or it will only go in reverse. I'm not sure which. Hope it's the first one."

Ace nodded. "Sounds good." She smiled at the Doctor, obviously referencing some memory that they shared. "Ready to blow up a vehicle?"

The Doctor smiled, remembering. "You've always done what you're told."

* * *

Kathryn's re-wire had been successful, thankfully. They drove the mile to get to the robots without mishap, Kathryn's trepidation and tension growing as they neared. The Doctor waited with the getaway bike. Kathryn carried the explosives, and Ace ran the wire.

It looked as though all of the robots had simply shut down where they stood. There were perhaps fifteen of the smaller ones, all lined up. Even standing perfectly still, the moonlight and bareness of their surroundings made them particularly menacing. Ace glanced at Kathryn before they walked forward out of the trees.

"Are you okay?"

Kathryn took a deep breath. "Yeah. I'll be good." They walked forward, the lack of plants making their approach silent. They started directly in, attaching C-4 to each robot's back with three of the Nitro-11 canisters spread out evenly along the way.

"What about the big one?" Kathryn whispered, her throat tight. The giant looked even bigger up close.

Ace studied the creature. "Go back to the Doctor and get my crossbow. We're going to slap an electromagnetic pulse up-side its head, one on the chest, and one on the back. They work remotely, and the Professor can always jimmy-rig the detonator up to blow both at once."

"We can't just get rid of the legs or something?"

"No. We don't have enough bang for it."

Kathryn went back to the motorcycle, but was unable to turn her back on the Krize robots.

"Boo."

Kathryn gave a short yelp at the Doctor's voice. "Don't do that. It's horribly rude."

The Doctor grinned at her. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."

Kathryn gave him a mock glare, sticking her tongue out impudently. Then she seemed to realize what she was doing and sobered. "Ace wants her crossbow." She pulled out a remote and handed it to him as she continued speaking. "Oh, and you need to re-work the detonator to start both the EM pulse and the C-4 going at the same time. We're frying the big guy and popping the small ones." She looked up at the Doctor's face. "You're certain that they aren't manned?"

"Positive."

"Good. Don't need more on my list."

Kathryn froze. The Doctor frowned. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure." She spun back around and focused on the smaller robots, closing her eyes and studying the line. Her eyes snapped open.

"Ace! Get out! They're waking up!"

* * *

*Constructive criticisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*


	8. Chapter 8

Ace looked up in response to Kathryn's yell, just in time to see the eyes of the smaller robots lighting up. They all turned to focus on her.

Responding with instinct, she took the EM pulse in her hand and stuck it on the chest of the robot directly in front of her. She set it off and the electronic pulse shut it and the adjoining robots down. Temporarily.

They woke back up in an instant. A signal must have been sent to the larger one, because behind her, Ace could hear it turning around.

Suddenly the sound of a motor cut through the sound of creaking joints. There was a flash of light and her motorcycle stopped in front of her, the Doctor driving. Kathryn was carrying her crossbow in one hand, loaded with one of the EM pulses, and a detonator in the other.

"Need a ride?"

Ace got on the back, taking the crossbow from Kathryn and firing up at the largest robot. The pulse fizzled and popped, but worked as the Doctor started up the motorcycle again and sped out and around the line of smaller robots. Before they had cleared the area, Kathryn pressed the button on the detonator.

The three friends retreated back down the already destroyed area, the sorter robots flying apart in a great ball of fire.

Kathryn looked backwards at Ace. Both of them were grinning. "I sort of wish we could see what this looks like from the front!" she yelled.

A sudden explosion directly behind the motorcycle cut off any reply. The bike went flying into the air, sending the three friends off in all directions.

Kathryn felt a strange, dangerous anger flare up in the pit of her stomach as the Doctor gave a short exclamation of pain. She scrambled up, trying to get her bearings and looking for the Doctor at the same time. She finally saw him. His arm was flopping at a strange angle, telling her his shoulder had been dislocated.

"Man down!"

The sound of a charging laser caught her attention and she turned towards the source of the noise. The dissimilation robot had produced laser cannons from its shoulders and was taking aim. Kathryn instantly looked around.

"Doctor!" she shouted at the Time Lord. "Do you see Ace?"

The Doctor pointed with his good arm as he stood. Kathryn looked over at Ace pinned under the motorcycle, looked back at the targets on the laser cannons, and felt instinct.

Running like a train, Kathryn sprinted for Ace, tripped, rolled, and stood up in time to get hit.

She froze, feeling the raw power of the narrow beam of light flooding through her in a wave of heat. Every sliver of her body felt buried by the non-existent agony.

The red hot ice passed, filtering away. Kathryn stared down at Ace, who was staring at her.

"Nice trick," she said non-chalantly. Kathryn helped her haul the motorcycle off.

"I'll teach it to you sometime," Kathryn told Ace. She looked back up at the steadily approaching dissimilation robot. Ace watched as Kathryn's eyes unfocused and she started waving her hands as though looking at a 3-D interactive display of something. She stopped and looked at Ace.

"Ace, go get the Doctor's sonic."

"Why do you need it?" Kathryn glanced over at the Doctor, who'd crossed over to them.

Kathryn picked up the crossbow which had fallen nearby. "I know what to do. It's just…going to be messy and shrapnely and stuff."

She glanced at the laser cannons, waited a beat, then shoved her friends off to the side. The ground exploded where they'd been standing.

"Doctor, I need your sonic," Kathryn demanded. The Doctor focused on her eyes for a moment, then pulled out the sonic and handed it to her. Kathryn shoved the crossbow and the last EM pulse into Ace's hands. "Smack in the middle of his forehead."

Ace did as ordered, then turned back in time to see Kathryn shaking the last canister of Nitro-11 like a can of soda pop.

"Where exactly are you aiming?" the Doctor asked.

"Center of the chest."

"You're certain?"

Kathryn heard the trepidation in the Doctor's voice.

"You're right," she agreed, looking at the Nitro-11. "This needs help." She handed the canister back to Ace as the dissimilation robot began to wake up again. She pulled out one of her homemade grenades, pulled the pin, loaded the crossbow with it, hefted it to her shoulder, and fired.

It hit the robot in a burst of shrapnel, doing nothing more than denting the metal. The robot stuttered, then a single blue eye flickered in the center of its forehead. The light danced out in a graph pattern, flashing out over the several hundred yards to the three friends.

"RAHKI JAHRA EXPERIMENT E.F.A. DETECTED IN VICINITY OF SUBJECT L.T.L. SEPARATE AND RETRIVE."

"Not today, bongo," Kathryn muttered under her breath. She loaded the Nitro-11 canister into the now empty crossbow and soniced the whole thing, then hefted it to her shoulder. She waited for the robot to draw a little closer and fired.

There was a loud, messy explosion and metal went flying everywhere. Kathryn rested the weapon on her shoulder and gave a self-satisfied sniff.

"I win."

The Doctor and Ace burst into laughter.

* * *

The Doctor rolled his shoulder, Ace having popped it back into its socket. They had gone back through a temporal portal to where Ace had picked up Kathryn and the Doctor in the first place.

"Since you're sore, do I get to drive?" Kathryn asked him.

"No. Well, yes technically. But no."

"But Doctor…"

"No."

Kathryn looked over at Ace. "Then can I have the recipe for Nitro-11?"

"No."

Having been turned down simultaneously by both adults, she let it drop. "Fine." Kathryn looked up at Ace. "You're certain you don't want to come with us?"

Ace shook her head. "I made my choice once. I make it again."

The Doctor smiled, a little sad. "You've done well Ace. I hope that you can convince people to come and start again."

"They'll come."

"You know, we never figured out what the Krize were doing with the Ronodim, or why they'd do so much to get it," Kathryn said.

The Doctor looked down at Kathryn. "I'm sure we'll figure it out at some point. As long as I'm carrying you around, we'll learn someday."

"What do you mean?"

"The final robot probably sent his superiors a message once he'd scanned you."

"Thanks."

Ace smiled at Kathryn's tone. "You'll get through." She looked at the Doctor as though thinking about something, then decided to go with it and hugged the Doctor for a moment. "Take care of that kid," she told him. "She's useful to keep around."

"Just because you both like sending things up in flames."

"Flames can be helpful," Ace reminded the Doctor. She nodded to Kathryn. "Keep an eye on the Professor for me. Never any end of trouble with him around."

"More fun that way," Kathryn said with a grin.

With a final nod, Ace brought up a portal and went through it. The Doctor turned to Kathryn.

"How did you really know where to hit that robot?"

She paused. "I felt something click…no, that's the wrong word. A file opened in my head, and I saw a perfect schematic of the robot. I examined it, saw a weak point, and decided to follow through."

"Did you run in front of that cannon knowing you'd survive?"

"It wasn't a conscious thought, but that's close enough." Kathryn took a breath, biting the inside of her lip as she thought. "It was…disturbing, like someone was sending me signals and giving me ideas without my say so. Not the first time it's happened, just…just the first time it's happened on such a grand scale."

"It's happened before?"

Kathryn nodded. "Yeah. Small things, like re-wiring Ace's motorcycle, or why the architecture I'm seeing doesn't belong in a certain century. But nothing like blowing up a robot."

Kathryn looked up at the Doctor, tilting her head slightly. "You gave me the oddest look just before you loaned me the sonic. What was it for?"

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets, turning off in the direction of the TARDIS. "What were you seeing? At the time?"

Kathryn knew what the Doctor was looking for. "Clear mostly. A little bit of energy haze. Why?"

"It shows," the Doctor said, a little off-handedly. "Your eyes lose their green color and go all…swirly," he said, wiggling his fingers in front of his eyes. "Stronger you get your bloodlust the more color you have. Be interesting if it wasn't so bothersome."

"Is it bothersome because I kill people when I spark, or because I spark when I kill people?"

"Both, but more of the second one." The Doctor grimaced, scratching the back of his neck. "I just can't figure why the Rahki would make something like you. It just doesn't fit."

The Doctor looked down at Kathryn. She smiled up at him and he felt a sharp pang as he suddenly remembered the children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and other family he'd had long ago.

"It's like with the Krize problem Doctor; stick with me and we'll figure it out someday." Kathryn gave him a wink before twirling off through the forest in front of him.

"Come on! I want to try and see if I can't park better in the next place!"

The Doctor grinned and dashed off after his friend.

* * *

*Constructive criticisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*

Yeah, not much change here. Just tightening up the loose screws, that's all. Yes, I skipped "One Shot." I'll get back to it, promise. Soon I'll have the edited version of "Teacher Doctor Scientist" up. Promise.


End file.
